Top 10 Twitter Tips

1. When is the best time of day for a brand to
post?

According to Twitter, there are 140,000,000+ active daily users
with an average of 340,000,000 daily tweets. Content posted on
Twitter quickly disappears from most users accounts, especially on
mobile as users will not scroll more than a few times to catch up
on tweets. Therefore, it is important to tweet throughout the day
and at the times when users are most active. This can be discovered
from listening tools and analysis.

2. Any tips on how
companies can increase their number of followers in the lead up to
Christmas?

- Create
visual content which is exciting!

-
Engage with your current followers and follow influential
tweeters

-
Create a search for keywords associated with your brand and/or
industry to ensure you are not missing out on live
conversations

-
Allow social sharing on your website and ensure your Twitter Handle
is on all promotional material, email marketing, email signatures
and is clearly visible on the website

- If
you operate customer service on Twitter, kindly state your hours in
your information section to make users aware or they will expect
timely answers at all times of the day

- Do
not buy followers - they are wasted stats and when you actually run
a campaign, your numbers will be skewed in a negative way. Also, it
looks terrible to active followers. Users and news sites
commonly report these fake followers, outing your brand!

3. What is the importance of creating a hashtag for
Christmas marketing campaigns?

- The
power of a hashtag is crucial for a strong campaign, especially
over the Christmas period when users are bombarded with promotions
and brand campaigns. It provides an easily identifiable visual to
the brand and the campaign; it also sparks curiosity in those who
may not follow the brand. A powerful hashtag will influence others
to join the conversation, some haghtags last longer than the
campaign which provides lasting results for the brand. Users can
easily click on the hashtag to follow the conversation and learn
about the campaign, this does not require following the brand,
extending the reach of your campaign

-
Hashtags allow the brand to easily track the reach of the campaign
and brand mentions as well as find new users and influencers

- Be
creative with your hashtags but make sure they are identifiable to
the campaign. Basic keyword hashtags like #travel and #fashion are
commonly used and will not show you the true results of your
campaign. Once you've narrowed down your hashtag choices, check to
see if they already exist by using Twitter's search function. If
they do, is it positive and do you want your brand associated with
those tweets?

-
Most of all, promote your hashtag so your fans know to use it! You
have to ask for what you want in social

-
Twitter recently launched Event Hashtag pages, so an offline
marketing campaign could qualify for its own page once Twitter
launches this fully. Right now, the industry suspects these will be
rolled out to big sporting and entertainment events first

-
The first Tweet from Space happened on 22 January 2010 from
@Astro_TJ

- In May
2010, Lady Gaga became the first Tweeter to have over 10 million
'Little Monsters'

- In 2011,
Twitter stated a figure of around 500K each day, but this statistic
doesn't clarify if they are actual individuals or spam bots which
Twitter is unfortunately plagued by. Some argue that users who are
not active in tweeting are not useful, but users who are on Twitter
purely for receiving the most up to the minute information on
topics that matter to them are still influenced and build brand
affinity

- Twitter
kicked off in 2006 and it took three years to reach 1 billion
Tweets. In 2011, it announced 1 billion tweets are sent ever
week

5.Does twitter have any upcoming
developments that could help companies improve their market
visibility?

- Hashtags
for Events - Twitter launched this new initiative via their first
commercial by teaming up with Nascar. Expect to see this with all
big events coming up!

-
Improved Search - Just last week, Twitter announced they will be
rolling out new search features which will provide users with
better personalised results leading to a better overall user
experience

-
Enhanced Profiles - These will be rolled out in the coming months,
Twitter states it will increase engagement and drive business
goals. It is a great redesign of the page visually, so brands can
better brand their page visually and feature important content by
promoting a tweet which will automatically expand to show media.
Right now, this feature is only available to selected handles.
Check out Nike's page for a
preview!

-
Promoted Tweets - Paid packages are available from Twitter to have
a tweet promoted

6. Are there any tools which can be used to monitor
your Twitter page analytics?

-
Agencies such as Greenlight provide this service for brands, as
most companies do not have the social media resource, knowledge or
access to the different monitoring tools. Certain agencies have
expertise of doing in-depth social media monitoring research. They
are staffed by those passionate about the industry, keep up-to-date
on platform changes and neat campaigns, plus have extensive
knowledge about a range of industries so you can be sure their
ideas and optimisation suggestions are well researched

- Social
listening tools such as Brandwatch, Sysomos and Radian6 help
analyse your Twitter results

-
HootSuite Pro account & TweetDeck

- If you
are advertising on Twitter, it also provides some analytics for
you

-
Schmap.it is a great tool and used by many Fortune 500
companies

-
SocialBro is a favourite amongst many big name brands as well; it
helps you learn about your community through search criteria and
filters

7. How can you use Twitter to target different sectors?

-
Twitter is a great way to discover influential people in specific
industries, as well as brand ambassadors. By building a
relationship with these users, you can begin to show your industry
knowledge and brand personality

- By
engaging with high profile tweeters in key markets, you naturally
begin to enter streams of conversations with users who are
interested in your brand/industry, resulting in many of them
following you

-
Producing and sharing campaigns and content that are suitable for
that market is really important. If you do not produce strong,
engaging content, users will not follow you

8.What are the key dates and times
that people will be talking about Christmas on
Twitter?

- In
December, Twitter is inundated with Advent Calendars, 12 Days of
Christmas Giveaways, Christmas Wish lists and Stocking Stuffers.
Most campaigns begin by launching hints and mentions two weeks
prior to the start of the campaign

- One of
the busiest days on Twitter's is Christmas day and the period just
after it. We are a society who likes to share

9.How advantageous is it to use a
celebrity to promote campaigns on Twitter?

- It is
always nice to have a celebrity promote your brand, although users
are beginning to crack down on mindless celebrity endorsements.
Recently, Nike ran into a problem with Twitter from their
#makeitcount campaign, which included celebrities such as Wayne
Rooney, as the tweets were not clearly labelled as Marketing
Communications. Sometimes this controversy will lead to an increase
in spread, engagement and mentions but it might not be worth the
risk. Having a celebrity who truly reflects the brand and their
goals while also relating to the community and brand endorsements
works best

10.How beneficial is it to follow
organisations and companies?

- Knowing
what your competitors are doing is always beneficial to a brand! It
provides you with benchmarks, knowledge of what they are doing and
how they are doing it. It also helps you discover conversations
about your goods or services that you may want to get involved
in

- If you
are a retail brand, follow your shopping centre accounts to ensure
you are up-to-date on what is happening in the centre and see if
they can promote you and vice versa. Any events in-store should be
mentioned on the centre's handle, they want visitors just like
you

- If you
are a travel brand, ensure you follow your travel agents, airports,
cruise ports, excursion companies etc. Utilising each other will
increase your reach!